10:42am

Opinion

New Republic: Shhh...Secretly Sick Dicatators

Chris Clemans, Max Schulman and Margy Slattery are interns for The New Republic.

Recent events got The New Republic thinking about all the rumors of dictators' bad health and those heads of state whose well-being has generated rumor, uncertainty and controversy.

In 1951, President Juan Peron had his second wife, Eva, examined and treated for cervical cancer without her knowledge — an effort to keep the illness hidden from Eva and the Argentine public during Peron's second presidential campaign. The government denied reports that the first lady was suffering from the disease, but she eventually died from it the following year.